Who appears on the Google's free listings? – Google Survey Pt 1

Getting your website to appear in the organic search results on the first page of Google requires significant commitment over an extended period of time and national players invest heavily in achieving this. But do local printers enjoy page one exposure in the organic list?

The Google Survey

This was one of 3 key questions we asked ourselves in our Google Survey, which we will cover in two more posts over the coming weeks.

There are two ways you can appear on Google search results – in the paid for search results, or in the organic (free) listings.

For the purposes of this survey, we analysed only those businesses that appeared in the organic search results.

We searched for two key printing terms together with a location: “Digital Printing” and “Leaflet Printing” + a city e.g. Leicester.

Looking at 26 locations in the UK, we counted how many of the businesses listed in the organic search results were bona fide local printer’s websites. We then undertook the same survey 6 months later for comparison.

Almost 2 out of 3 companies appearing in the Google organic search results were bona fide local printers.

In recent updates to Google’s algorithms, Google is increasingly favouring local businesses in the organic search results, particularly for any location-based search. Indeed, over a 6 month period the number of bona fide local printers appearing in the organic search results increased by 3%. Although only a small increase, it certainly supports this trend.

It would be reasonable to assume that other printing terms together with a location would exhibit a similar profile.

This suggests that Google can work to a certain extent for local businesses looking to target local clients online, but how many of these businesses are taking advantage of this?

We’ll be discussing this in our next blog post on our Google Survey.

For more information or for a full copy of the Survey, please email info@w3p.com